I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Window in December
The window was finished on the twentieth of December.
We hung the last pane at noon, the small red heart at the center of the rose.
The Monsignor stood on the stone floor below with his hands folded and said nothing for a full minute.
Then he blessed it and went away to say Vespers.
He left us the key to the hall.
I came back alone at midnight.
I had not told Ansel why.
I had only said, in the kitchen, that I wanted him at the chapel hall at twelve, in the black suit.
I had told him to come by himself.
The snow had stopped.
The moon stood almost full over the Strip, and the hall was dark except for the window.
It lit from outside, from the streetlamps and the moon, and the rose glowed in the stone wall.
I stood in the center aisle in a dress I had made myself over two nights.
The ivory silk had come from Edinburgh, where I had bought it and never used it.
The dress was plain, with a long skirt and a high neck.
It was the dress the girl on the steps wore in Marta's drawing.
I held a bunch of flowers like hers.
They were only winter greenery from the florist on Penn Avenue, holly and white roses and a sprig of rosemary.
The door at the back opened.
Ansel stood in it with the cold behind him, in his black suit and a white shirt, with snow on his shoulders.
He saw me, and the whole hall went still.
He walked up the aisle.
He did not hurry, and he did not look at anything else.
When he reached me he stopped one pace away.
"You are in white," he said.
"I'm in ivory," I said.
"You are in the dress."
"I made it from her drawing."
He looked at it, and at the flowers, and at the great red window glowing behind me.
I watched him understand, and I watched his face give way.
"Neve," he said.
"We didn't get a church," I said. "We got a clerk and a courthouse and a mother who locked the door. Marta drew us a wedding. I thought we should have it."
"There is no priest," said Ansel.
"We don't need one. We've both said the words before. We can say them again."
"To whom?"
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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